Rick Perry Reversal: Signs Anti-Gay Marriage Pledge

The Associated Press is reporting that 2012 GOP presidential hopeful and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has gone back on his word to honor individual states' rights on gay marriage. The man who famously said he has no problem with New York's gay-marriage law has now signed a pledge by the National Organization for Marriage stating that, if elected, Perry will send a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification, and appoint U.S. Supreme Court and federal judges who will "reject the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution."

Others vying for the Republican presidential nomination, including Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, have also signed it, according to Brian Brown, president of the Washington-based National Organization for Marriage, which campaigns against same-sex marriage.

While far from a surprise, Perry's decision raised some eyebrows because it appears to contradict his previous position that this is an issue that should be left up to individual legislatures.

Perry won applause at a Republican conference in Colorado on July 22 when he said of New York's same-sex marriage law, "That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me."

We're never suprised when politicians go back on their word -- it's par for the course. What's up with signing pledges from groups and promising them in writing that you're going to try to change the Constitution in their favor? Isn't the president supposed to serve all citizens, regardless of religious or political affiliation?

We're still trying to figure out why people in a country where the divorce rate is above 50 percent are so concerned with gay marriage. Clearly, heterosexual marriage is not taken seriously in this country, so why the obsession with gay marriage? Perhaps heterosexual folks should expend that energy on fixing and maintaining their own marriages instead of worrying about gay marriage, which is none of their business. As my late grandmother, who was married to my grandfather for 55 years, used to say, they're focused on the wrong thing.